I've always been a fan of the first "Crow" movie. It was an excellent film by director Alex Proyas("Dark City") with perfect art direction and a great performance from Brandon Lee, who was tragically killed during production. Yet, as the first film did well, the studio wanted a sequel. The result is a weak revisiting of the original, a film that doesn't grow on me - it only gets even less entertaining whenever I revisit it.

Where "Crow" director Alex Proyas is a skillful and even gifted talent at making wonderfully dark, gritty looking pictures without going into "music-video" territory, "City Of Angels" director Tim Pope (whose former experience included directing Bangles music videos) steps right over that line. Pope also isn't as skilled with action sequences, as this picture really doesn't have nearly as many as the first picture. For this sequel, French actor Vincent Perez stars as Ashe, a man who is killed along with his son by a group of criminals. As with Lee's character in the original picture, he returns from the grave to get revenge, guided by a crow.

And there's little thrilling or even engaging about it. In comparison to Brandon Lee's performance that made the first installment so powerful, Vincent Perez doesn't seem nearly as energetic or intense. The supporting cast really doesn't have much to add, either. Mia Kirshner, who first gained notice in Atom Egoyan's much-praised "Exotica" hasn't been seen much since the one-two combination of this film and the John Travolta flop "Mad City". Richard Brooks doesn't make much of a villian either, although to his credit, he doesn't have much to work with. And speaking of material, the suprise dissapointment here is David Goyer's screenplay. A writer known for some suprisingly good genre offerings("Blade", "Dark City"), everything here - dialogue, characters, story - comes up lacking.

The film at least does have talent in terms of some of the behind-the-camera crew, such as ace cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier("Good Will Hunting") and production designer Alex McDowell, who also worked on the first picture. This simply makes for a film that, although occasionally visually interesting, can't make up for what the rest of the film lacks, and lacks very noticably.